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October 31, 2006
Scores and Parents, pt 2.
Categories: Classes
Yesterday's entry ended with this basic argument:
1. Meaningful parental involvment is necessary for students to succeed in school.
2. There are some parents who are not involved in their children's education.
2.a. Short of extreme state-sponsored coersive methods, those parents cannot be forced into involvement.
3. Our democratic principles require us to give children a fair shot at success. Children whose parents are not involved do not get that fair shot and it's not their fault that they don't get that fair shot.
Now for the new part (conclusion):
4. Some sort of compensatory mechanism needs to be put into place to give students whose parents are not involved extra help to assure they have the chance to do well in school and, thus, get a fair shot at out-of-school success.
What this argument is supposed to do is counter those people, like lots of the commentors in Tomlinson's blog, who say "It's the parent's fault!" That may very well be true. But what mechanisms can the state take to rectify the situation? It cannot force the parents to be involved. It can't make them discipline their children appropriately. It cannot make parents care about school. Those things are beyond the authority of the state. The primary mechanisms available are compensatory mechanisms. These are mechanisms that seek to give the children whose parents are not involved extra assistance in various forms -- before and after school care and tutoring, free and reduced lunch, extra help during the school day, etc.
Who ought to provide these mechanisms? The school (as an agent of the state) already tries to provide some of them and serves as the primary vehicile for these mechanisms. It's been doing that, to some degree, for most of the 20th Century, but especially since the 1960's. I think it should continue to serve as the primary mechanism for two reasons. One, as a compulsory agent, it gathers all these students together in the same place. Students have to go to schools, so schools seem a reasonable place to provide these mechanisms. Second, the democratic state needs an educated populace in order to function, so the state is perpetuating itself and the ideals on which it is based by assuring all students, regardless of the accidents of parentage, are educated.
The school/state need not be the only mechanism, however. In fact, it probably cannot do the job on it's own. As a state instituion, it is not overly local in focus, nor is it espeically personal or flexible. Other community agencies need to assist in the compensatory mechanisms necessitated by parental neglect. Churches, community organizations, and others must assist schools in helping those chidlren whose parents are not involved in the education of their child. Their rationale would likely be the same as that of the state: our democratic ideals of fairness and comminity require us to help those who, through no fault of their own, are placed at an educational, democratic, and economic disadvantage. This is happening in Charlotte and elsewhere, according to this article.
What I've tried to do in these two entries is develop an argument that shows why claiming "it's the parent's fault" when scores drop or school conditions are unacceptable. The claim may be true, but assigning blame to parents in no way solves the problem. Parents who are neglectful of their children's education place those children at a disadvantage. Those children cannot be left in that postion because they did nothing themselves to end up there. It's up to schools, with the help of other community organizations, to make sure they don't stay there.
Posted by Nakia at October 31, 2006 07:51 AM